Health anxiety is ruining my life...and my career [Archive]

Js2019

04-10-20, 02:23

NoraB

04-10-20, 05:55

Hello! I am a 24 year old female. I work in a hospital and have a great job. But recently my job of two years is in jeopardy because, you guessed it, my anxiety. I cannot not worry about something. My brain never “turns off”. If I’m not worrying about one problem it’s another. I swear my body creates physical symptoms for my brain to fixate on. Last week I was worried I had covid. Got tested, negative. This week I’m worried about something else. It’s affecting my career because of my number of call offs for feeling sick. How do i let my brain just calm down for once?

There's always a cause for health anxiety - a trigger of some sort. My latest bout was triggered when my mother died and all the other bouts were linked to family members being ill or dying. So it helps to try and address the root cause.

Anxiety creates lots of symptoms, and they are very real. But we fixate on them and fear the worst instead of thinking things through rationally. Once a symptom has been cleared of any sinister cause, it disappears only to be replaced by another and because we feel so ill (and anxiety can make you feel very ill) we struggle to believe there is nothing wrong, and in fact, the doctors just haven't found what's wrong yet. It is very hard for the anxious mind to accept that it's our thoughts which are making us feel ill, and not a disease that will kill us. It's the survival instinct running out of synch, if you like.

You've formed a habit of thinking this way, and it will take effort to break that habit - as with everything else.

Are you in any kind of therapy for your HA?